Optimal Energy-Aware Epidemic Routing in DTNs

In this paper, the authors investigate the use of epidemic routing in energy constrained Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs). In DTNs, connected paths between source and destination rarely occur due to sparse density and mobility of nodes. Epidemic routing is ideally suited in this environment for its simplicity and fully distributed implementation. In epidemic routing, messages are relayed by intermediate nodes through con-tact opportunities, i.e., when pairs of nodes come within transmission range. Each node needs to decide whether to forward its message upon contact with a new node based on its residual energy level and the age of that message.